


Nonchalance

by AnotherAnon0



Series: Toxic [3]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Bath Houses, Blood, Cutting, Dubious Consent, Hazing, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Knifeplay, Light Masochism, M/M, Military, Russia, Sadism, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:47:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23864014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAnon0/pseuds/AnotherAnon0
Summary: Since the downsizing of the military, Sergei has been disappearing and keeping secrets. Nicholai is annoyed.~He kept his eyes firmly planted on the cedar-vaulted ceiling of the banya. He didn't have to look to know Sergei was probably admiring the dark bruises on his naked abdomen from where the older man sat somewhere at the other side of the bathhouse, a gift from the day's job for the local mafia.It had paid the bills since his release from the effectively-defunded Soviet G.R.U.Sergei's disapproval be damned.
Relationships: Nicholai Ginovaef | Nikolai Zinoviev/Sergei Vladimir
Series: Toxic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718308
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Nonchalance

Nicholai's body ached. His muscles screamed at every little movement, rebelling against the exertion of the previous day. Carefully and slowly twisting his body to lay flat on the hot wood of the _banya_ bench, he silently wondered if one more month of stagnation could have lost him the years of dedicated training he had accumulated in the military. 

A deep exhale once he found a comfortable position on his back, letting his tired body relax. The hot, dry air of the sauna assaulted his mouth as he parted his lips.

He kept his eyes firmly planted on the cedar-vaulted ceiling of the _banya_. He didn't have to look to know Sergei was probably admiring the dark bruises on his naked abdomen from where the older man sat somewhere at the other side of the bathhouse, a gift from the day's job for the local mafia.

It had paid the bills since his release from the effectively-defunded Soviet G.R.U.

Sergei's disapproval be damned.

Nicholai closed his eyes, deeply breathing in the familiar smells of the _banya._ In his head, he moved past the dryness of the air to find the eucalyptus. The birch. The moist wood. Sergei's sweat. His own. Nicholai interrogated each note, tracing its origins using a mental map of the room.

The eucalyptus branches were burning beneath the hot stones, smoke piping through the room as steam. The birch _banny vanik_ were soaking in a bucket of piping hot water, relaxing and releasing their fragrance. The moist wood surrounded him, every inch of the room made of ancient Siberian cedars.

And then there was Sergei -- seated a meter away. A world apart. Too close. The man's scent was unique on its own, with that damned citrusy cologne always lingering somewhere in his presence. It was like it was in his pores. An esoteric footprint. 

Nicholai exhaled, and then journeyed through his scent map again. And again. And again, until he got irritated of Sergei's nonchalance. 

The older man had been missing for nearly eight months. Radio silent. A miraculous endeavour Nicholai had been convinced he was incapable of even if or when dead. The sudden disappearance immediately followed a vodka-fuelled rant about vengeance, and anxiety about the mass-unemployment of his platoons after the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a downsizing of the military. 

Sergei wasn't one to just drop off the face of the Earth. He most certainly wasn't one to drop off the face of the Earth and come back... in a _state_.

"Are you going to tell me what happened or are you going to pretend I didn't notice?" He said, eyes still closed, annoyed.

Sergei chuckled, reflexively moving to rub his left arm. The flesh from wrist to elbow was pale, paler than that of the rest of his body, and pocked with hundreds of marks. Green and blue veins were just barely visible through the skin under a sea of pinpricks. 

When an answer didn't follow, Nicholai turned his head, eyes shooting open to glare at the older man.

"Well?" He growled. 

"Soon, _Kolya_." Sergei said softly. Too softly. Nicholai hated it, huffing a breath through his nostrils. 

Sergei got up, moving to the small sink that was positioned at the corner of the _banya_ , not bothering to wrap his naked body with the towel he'd been using to sop up the sweat on his neck. He ran cool water and drenched his face and neck with a quiet sigh before grabbing the straight-razor that he'd brought and left at the porcelain bowl's edge. 

Nicholai propped himself up on his elbows, watching the other man shave. He told himself he was tracing the contours of his body in search of other signs that could indicate what had happened to the Colonel, but what started as the truth ended as a lie. It always did.

The gritting noise of metal wiping skin made Nicholai's skin crawl. It absorbed every other sound in the room. The blade glittered against the dull light of the room when it hit just the right the angle of Sergei's chiseled jaw, and, for a moment, Nicholai was transfixed. Waiting for the next gush of light in a trace-like state. The state was broken when the glimmers stopped, Sergei's lips pulling into a smirk, and the blade having to trace a new contour, one that dodged the light. Nicholai finally noticed the Colonel had been watching him through the mirror.

He shuddered and collapsed back onto the bench, returning to his mental scent map, and the precarious, deformed notch of cedar in the ceiling he'd been focusing on earlier. 

The abusive noises stopped a minute later, ending with the screeching whine of the tap as Sergei closed it. The sink drained out with a final glug.

Nicholai's scent mapping told him Sergei was getting closer. Too close. He closed his eyes to avoid what he knew was the inevitable image of the man looming over him. He knew they were closed too tightly, and that the older man would notice. He tried to loosen them up. To make it more natural. He failed.

A moment of silence.

An offensive chuckle.

That fucking smell.

" _Kolya_ , you wound me."

Nicholai's muscles trembled when cool metal began to tickle his skin, dancing along the bruises he'd accumulated on his abdomen. His eyes fluttered open to see precisely what he'd anticipated. Sergei, staring down at him with a smug, pensive smirk -- wisps of long, silver hair gracefully fallen in front of his bad eye. Strands sticking together, dampened with sweat.

He hoped the older man didn't see his Adams apple bob. But of course he did. The blade moved there next, gently scraping the skin -- making that _awful,_ gritting noise.

The air was drier now. Hotter than it had been before. Nicholai wondered if he was just imagining it, but the sweat pooling at his collarbone told him he couldn't have been. 

But maybe it wasn't the _banya_.

Sergei slowly lowered himself to sit on the bench beside the younger man, hanging one leg off the bench as the other folded itself neatly beneath him. Nicholai swallowed as the sticky warmth of Sergei's thigh pressed up tightly against his arm. The Colonel was staring at him intently, having not broken eye-contact, lips slightly parted. The straight razor was hovering over Nicholai's cheek now, caressing it gently.

"Do you remember..." Sergei broke the silence, "when you were a _dukh_?"

1979\. A lower-than-low tier conscript. 17-years old. Terrified. At the mercy of the senior soldiers, who so often liked to bully the new 'meat.' Of course Nicholai remembered. 

"Why are you reminiscing over such things?" Nicholai grunted, getting annoyed again. The blade stopped caressing for a moment, and Sergei cocked his head to the side. 

"Does it upset you?"

"The past is the past. It needs to stay that way."

A wide grin pulled at Sergei's lips. A moment of silence passed between them before the older man shook his head. 

"No, _comrade_." 

The blade was so sharp that Nicholai didn't even feel it when it began to slice into his skin, starting at the corner of his eyebrow and expertly being dragged down to his lip. Warmth flooded down his face, the undulating sensation of numb swelling beginning to pulsate through the crack where ribbons of crimson were now cascading down his cheek, onto the cedar of the _banya_ bench he had been lying on. He gasped when an electric shock of pain shot to the back of his head.

"That's why we get scars. To remember the past. Always remember." Sergei brought the straight razor to his lips, running his tongue along the side, cleaning it off. 

Nicholai brought a disbelieving hand to his cheek, tentatively touching his face before inspecting the reddened digits with a look of pensive shock.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" He uttered breathlessly, sitting up quickly. Blood immediately dripped onto the white towel that had been draped over his hips. Scrambling to navigate around where Sergei had been sitting, Nicholai rose from the bench. The red-stained linen dropped to the floor unceremoniously as he padded across the wooden floor to the mirror. 

"What the fuck, Sergei?" Nicholai growled, inspecting the crescent-shaped wound. His words somewhat slurred as the cut which extended down to the right corner of his lip had begun to fatten, radiating a deep throb. He prodded the inside of his cheek with his tongue to ensure the cut hadn't penetrated as he twisted the whining tap on.

Nicholai ignored the older man's image manifesting behind him in the mirror as he tried fruitlessly to wipe blood off of his face and neck with an ineffective palm, rinsing his fingers under the stream of water. The self-satisfied apparition was smirking. It was grabbing his sides gently, one tremendously large hand over each one of Nicholai's sinewy shoulders. It was pulling him close. Closer. 

Reflected in the mirror, he watched Sergei's tongue run just below the cut, sopping up any of the blood mingling with water on his cheek like a leech. Nicholai gripped the sink for support as he watched him do it again. And again. And again.

The heat of the _banya_ was now unbearable. Neither of them had fed water into the steamer, and the air was so dry it hurt to breathe. It hurt to gasp. It hurt to whimper, but he did as one of the large, scarred hands moved down to the delicate spot on his belly to pull him impossibly closer. 

Sticky skin on skin. Sucking and licking. The crackle of neglected, burning rocks in the _banya_ oven.

That _fucking_ smell. Sergei's smell.

 _How_ could it overpower the blood? The cedar? The birch? 

"You've lost your mind." His words were hushed. Furious. Disbelieving. Enraged. It hurt to speak. The cut had inflamed the flesh on the left side of his face and it was hard to move his lips.

Sergei lifted his head from Nicholai's cheek, looking at him through the mirror with a grin that was out of place. It was a kiddish grin. A playful grin. A grin that was entirely inappropriate for the blood-stained teeth that were exposed when his lips pulled away with his cheeks.

"Not quite yet, _Kolya_." He responded finally. "Almost."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you are enjoying it so far! What a niche ship lmfao 
> 
> So this is obviously based on the Operation Raccoon City model of Nicholai, considering he had a great scar on the side of his face I wanted to play with the concept of. Hence why I used that model in the graphic I made for this series! :0
> 
> Confession that the ORC Nicholai model was my favourite?? Is that sacrilege? It feels like sacrilege. I enjoyed the new RE3 Remake Nicholai, but something about the ORC Nicholai just felt authentic in how I perceived the original RE3 Nicholai to be in my head (or how he would have looked, if the graphics were better in the 90s), if that makes sense.


End file.
